Families put their rage, grief into words

As Cullen's sentencing nears, victims' relatives prepare to face him.

December 13, 2005|By Ann Wlazelek Of The Morning Call

Emily Stoecker wants to tell killer nurse Charles Cullen that he's made her life a living hell: She's afraid of nurses, her 5-year-old daughter fears hospitals, and her family lost a strong, loving matriarch.

"But I'd be wasting my time and words on a sadistic animal," the Vernon, N.J., woman wrote in a statement she hopes to read to the former nurse who confessed to injecting 35 patients, including her mother-in-law, with lethal doses of medicine.

As New Jersey's attorney general seeks to sentence Cullen early next year, relatives of his victims are preparing for their chance to address the man charged with murdering or attempting to murder their family members. Relatives in the Lehigh Valley are also preparing.

Walter and Carolyn Henne of Slatington circled Jan. 23 on their 2006 calendar. That's the date reserved for Cullen's sentencing in Lehigh County. The tentative date for Northampton County is Jan. 13.

"I don't know if I could personally look at him and talk to him," Carolyn Henne said about the man who killed her mother, 79-year-old Irene Krapf of Tamaqua, four years ago. "But my husband will speak for me."

Said Walter Henne, "We are looking forward to the day. We still look at that as closure."

Their statement is ready, he said. It's two paragraphs, from the heart. "We try to relate the pain he has inflicted upon my wife, myself and our family," he said. "My wife and daughter were at the hospital the night of the incident. They relive it over and over, remembering [Cullen] coming into the room and asking them to leave . We won't call him names. That's been done, and it has no effect."

Seongchun Park, whose 72-year-old father, William, was among Cullen's victims, is waiting for official notice of the sentencing date. "I'd love to [address Cullen], but somehow it's not that easy," he said, declining to comment further.

Julie Sanders of Bethlehem, a close friend to 90-year-old John Gallagher, said news that Cullen's sentencing could come as soon as January reminds her of the anger she harbors for the serial killer.

"Charlie was the last person who got to talk to John, and that really agitates me," she said. "For everything I did for John, promising to get him back home, I'm still feeling it. [Cullen] is not a nice man."

Sanders noted Gallagher died Feb. 11, 2001, so the anniversary is coming up. Christmas also reminds her of the meals and presents she shared with him. "At least, if [Cullen's] going to be sentenced, we can put everything to rest," she said.

Connie Keeler of Bethlehem Township said she wrote her one-page impact statement the day Cullen was charged with attempting to kill her father, local radio personality Paul Galgon. She looks forward to reading it to him.

"He killed my dad during the holidays," she said of Galgon's death Dec. 29, 2001, which a forensic pathologist could not link directly to medications. "It's been almost four years, but it's still affecting us. I think about my dad every day, and here's another Christmas without him."

Keeler said if Cullen wanted to save a life by donating a kidney, as he is saying he wants to do, "he should have started with our loved ones."

Under an agreement with prosecutors from both states, Cullen must be sentenced in New Jersey before he is sentenced in Pennsylvania. In exchange for a life term, he has cooperated with law enforcement, reviewed medical records and confessed to patient deaths and cardiac arrests to which he believes he contributed.

His lawyer, New Jersey Public Defender Johnnie Mask, protested Cullen's having to listen to impact statements from his victims' relatives and friends at his sentencings. But last week, Cullen agreed to waive his objections if the courts consented to his donating a kidney to his former girlfriend's relative in New York.

New Jersey court and law enforcement officials are still discussing details of the possible transplant, where it would happen and who would pay the costs.

John Hagerty, spokesman for the New Jersey attorney general's office, and prosecutors care little about Cullen's wish but are willing to include it in a deal if it can speed up the sentencing.

The deal would have a single New Jersey sentencing in which Cullen would face the families of his victims for all of the patients he killed or tried to kill in that state. In exchange, Cullen could travel to New York to donate a kidney to the dying man.

"We're looking at the best way to get the most expeditious sentencing process in place that will allow the families to face the accused," Hagerty said.

Cullen, a former Bethlehem resident and father of three who turns 46 on Feb. 22, has been in Somerset County Jail since his arrest in December 2003. He pleaded guilty to killing 29 patients and attempting to kill six others over a 16-year career.

The fact his sentencing could happen around the holidays is unfortunate, victims' relatives and friends say. But mainly, they are anxious to put the years of angst behind them.